torakris

Hi Kris! I have the reverse question: What items do you bring over from Japan for your relatives and parents (sembei/crackers? candy/snacks?)? Also, have you had much influence on their diet in terms of getting them to incorporate Japanese food into their lifestyles? ← I came back with almost one entire suitcase filled with curry roux (about 20 packs), beef stew roux, Pocky , Pretz, Hi-chu, a couple other new candies and a couple kinds of sembei (rice crackers). I think I have influenced my family quite a bit, they now own a rice cooker and buy Japanese rice. Friday nights are curry rice nights, almost every Friday night! When I am here they often request foods like tonkatsu, mapo dofu, sunomono, etc.

Though we have no plans to move to the US, I would consider my husband quite Americanized. We are sort of opposites like this as most of my Japanese friends say that I am more 'Japanese' than most Japanese people... In the close to 15 years I have been in Japan the amount of convenience foods has probably quadrupled. Retort packs are very common with everything from curry rice to pasta sauces to demi glace and white sauces. There also has been a great increase in ready made frozen foods, though most of them are for bentos (the Japanese lunch box). The Japanese are getting larger and their current diet plays a big role, few families are eating the way they did even one generation back.

Not that I can think of... fellow Clevelanders are you here? help me out!!

I just shoved a deviled egg in mouth, the whole thing all at once. Daughter Mia made them just now for her lunch but couldn't finish them all. As like most mothers you will see me eating quite a few leftovers from my kid's plate... I wish I had taken a picture, she does deviled eggs quite well.

You are going to see some of the best the restaurants in Cleveland have to offer, you just have to keep following along. My biggest cravings are sour patch kids (I am addicted) and beef. Last week I had one of those mile high rare roast beef sandwiches topped with thousand island dressing and cole slaw that really hit the spot. I can't wait to get my hands on some really fresh corn and tomatoes.

I have about 4 boxes of stockpiles... I just made a large Penzey's order and will soon be picking up a bunch of hog and sheep casings (for sausages). I also have 6lbs of Kosher salt and a years supply of Sour Patch Kids. Other things I will be picking up in the next week or so are various dried beans and baking supplies (nuts, shredded coconut, cocoa). These items (unlike the ones above) are available in Japan but very expensive. My kids are definitely more fluent in Japanese, it takes them a couple days to feel comfortable speaking English, but now 2 weeks into the trip they are doing quite well.

It is 12:30 and we were supposed to leave for the zoo about 2 hours ago, but my sister Mary has just called from the hospital and will be there until at least 1:30 and said we should go without her. So we have decided to eat a little bit of something before we head off. The kids are being fed eggs in a variety of forms, scrambled, hard boiled and egg salad. So for lunch I ate a black raspberry donut and a glass of water. I swear I normally eat better than this...

We are leaving for the zoo soon, so I will leave you with some pictures of the kids. Mia Julia Hide Hide with the 2 year old Cujo, Hide is actually taller than him this year...

I also wanted to explain a bit about my teaser photo, the food on the left are examples of food I have in my pantry at home while the food on the left is an example of the food I see when I open the pantry here at my parent's house. I cook quite a bit differently when I am here...

I just popped a piece of Big Red gum in my mouth, another can't find in Japan product. No cinnamon flavored gum anywhere... Since we ate a fairly late breakfast there is a good chance we may not have a lunch today, rather an early dinner. I guess it will depend on how hungry the kids get. My aunt is taking us to the zoo today, my 3 kids, sister Mary's 4 kids, me, Mary, Stef and another sister Gina. Gina and her boyfriend bought a house a couple years ago in Trumball County about about 45 minutes southeast of Cleveland, they have no kids (yet ) but do have the most wonderful great dane named Cujo, a coop full of chicken and a gaggle of geese that live in her lake. She is also the only sibling with a pool, so we spend quite a bit of time at her house.

oops, I forgot to include the pictures...

Good Morning! It is good to be blogging again. Don't worry, I am going to be showing the best that Cleveland has to offer! By the end of this blog I am sure that most of you will be rushing to the nearest travel agent and booking flights to Cleveland. Let's start off with breakfast, at home I start every morning with an iced coffee (I am a Toddy cold brew fan) here in Cleveland I have a choice of instant coffee or nothing... Cold instant coffee is even worse than hot so most mornings I drink a cup of hot instant. Once or twice a week I go out for an iced coffee, today was one of those days. I had promised my kids donuts, so this morning we headed out to Amy Joy and picked up two dozen with a buy one dozen and get one free coupon. My sister Mary had to go out to the hospital htis morning and visit a friend and her husband was working so she dropped her 4 kids (ages 12, 8, 6, 5) off here. Breakfast was for 7 kids, myself and my little sister Stef (age 23) who is still sleeping as I type this so I guess she will eat later. Neither of my parent's eat donuts nor does my other sister Erin, who also lives here. I was only able to eat 1 1/2 coconut donuts, these are my absolute favorite and the Mister Donut by my house in Japan has stopped selling them so it is now a once a year treat for me. I also picked up an iced latte...

Hello from Cleveland! My kids and I are on vacation in my hometown for a month, my husband couldn't make the trip this year, so this blog will be a little different from the other 3 I have done. Some words of warning before you start this blog! This blog will NOT contain beautiful pictures like we are seeing in Ann_T's blog. This blog will take you into places you may never have stepped foot in before, like Chuck E Cheese. This blog will actually contain very little Japanese food. A little bit about myself. I am 36 years old, happily married for 12 years and have 3 children (Mia is 10, Julis is 8 and Hide is 5), our home is in Yokohama, Japan. I try to visit my family once a year, and we are just halfway through our trip. I am the second oldest of 8 children and when I am here I do most of the cooking. Most dinners are for at least 7 children and 6 adults, though they can easily reach 20 people. Growing up there were 10 people at the dinner table every night so this is nothing new for me, hte challenge is working around everyones dislikes and medical conditions. My sister has 4 very picky eaters, my dad is diabetic and my mom until 2 weeks ago was on a doctor ordered extremely bland diet. After being on this for almost 1 1/2 years she is very excited to be eating food again but she is adding the foods back slowly and still trying to avoids acid-y foods. Since this is a vacation we are going to be out a lot and eating out more than we usually do. It is also a busy week for Cleveland eGulleteers as we have two dinners planned. It is almost 1:00am and I should get to sleep, I guess I will see everyone in the morning...

I am finally going to get to check out the Velvet Tango Room. check out this thread if you are interested in joining us.

Just tell me where to meet you! Hey we could even start off the trip with a lunch somewhere.... I can try to catch a ride back with another member, if you plan on staying longer on Sunday.

For the first time in my life I went to Corky and Lenny's, I never knew the place was a sit down restaurant. The pickles they started us off with were great, especially the pickled green tomatoes those were a first for me. I ordered 'The Eastsider' a rare roast beef sandwich with Thousand Island dressing and coleslaw (both on the sandwich) and a side of potato salad. It was everything I had been dreaming about, layer after layer after layer of roast beef on a great rye bread. It was a little bit pricier than what I had thought of paying for a sandwich but it was very good. It also turned out that my sister (who I was with) babysits for the manager and he treated all of us to some desserts.

I did get the chance to go to CAM last week and really thought it was great, compared to the other Asian stores in the area it is huge. I would estimate that more than 50% of the stuff in the store is Chinese with a mix of everything else. I can't really compare prices to other places as I haven't been anywhere else this year but they seemed average. The variety on some of the stuff was incredible, there was a huge section just of soy sauces. I loved the fresh vegetables and picked up a beutiful bunch of watercress for $.99 and a pack of eryngii (Japanese name, I think they called them king oyster) for less than $2 and it was a good sized pack. The fresh fish also looked decent and they had a variety of frozen meats. Their frozen selection was incredible, I wished I had taken a cooler...

I just found out my brother and his girfriend are flying in from Boston on the Saturday of the gathering, while this won't affect me attending it does mean I won't be able to use my mom's car to get to and from the gathering. Before I look into rentals can we discuss carpooling again? I am staying at the Best Western for both nights and would like to catch a ride with anyone going up early Friday as I would like to attend the archive tour. I need to attend a family picnic on Sunday in Middleburg Heights (Cleveland's west side) and can show up any time between 12 and 2. So if there is anyone leaving just before or just after the Sunday morning activities and can drop me off. If it is before 12 I can be dropped off at my aunt's house in North Olmsted (just one minute off the freeway). I can pay half the gas and am a decent conversationalist.

. We've been there once and the food was excellent. We had a three guac sampler - I think they literally smash those to order! They were so fresh and delicious, and each style was unique. We shared the tuna appetizer and the chile relleno, and they were very good - the chile relleno was truly outstanding. Bob had the chicken mole with corn fungus dumplings - while the latter weren't exactly my favorite flavor, it was the best, most complex mole I 've ever tasted. I had snapper, which was slightly underdone, but otherwise delicious, and our other companion had the tuna entree, which was also quite good. PM or email if you want company when you check it out - we need to go again! ← We have a dinner at Momocho coming up, click here for details.

I can't believe no one has posted on the incredible dinner we had last night!! Alex, where are your pictures?? That Blue Egg Ravioli was really to die for, absolutely incredible. Even though almost all of us ordered the Copper River Salmon (superb!) Dominic treated us to a dish of his carbonara, which he said he considers his favorite dish. It was by far the best carbonara I have ever eaten and I used to think I made a really good one.... The portions were huge and we all left with doggie bags (do people even call them that any more?) A big thanks to Dominic and his staff who went out of their way to serve us an incredible meal, even concluding with a tour of the kitchen.

Rockandroller, never fear a trip to the Leopard is in the works for later this month, if you a a day that works good for you let me know I am pretty open to any dates at the moment. Nancy, I am glad to hear of your report and am really looking forward to making the trip there myself. I hope you feel like joining us again.

I had my first meal out in Cleveland at Pacific East, only 2 days out of Japan and I already go for sushi... Actually we had been planning to go Luchita's at Shaker Square but couldn't find it...don't ask.. Just as I remembered, it was great!

Steven, you do realize I volunteered for a salad, right?? I am also happy to assist with some of the bigger preps (meat dishes, etc) as long as it doesn't invlolve me standing standing over hot oil for an hour...

This chukka/chuka, as in hiyashi chuka, is what Iw as just referring to as something prepared in the Chinese style. Hiyashi chuka could be translated into English as Chinese style cold noodles.

When I initially saw someone refer to this salad at chukka seaweed salad, I thought it was 中華, the Japanese word to describe Chinese style foods but it should be written chuuka or even chuka. I tried looking it up on the internet and I all come up with is this salad and some boots!